The present invention relates generally to medical catheters, and more particularly to a coupler for connecting branch catheters to a multi-lumen primary catheter.
Many modern medical devices utilize catheters which are inserted into a human body through an opening into a blood vessel and are then routed to a desired location such as the heart for the performance of a desired diagnostic or therapeutic procedure. As the procedures which can be carried out by means of such devices have become more sophisticated, the devices themselves have become more complex and today it is not uncommon for a single device to be capable of performing several functions simultaneously.
A catheter for use with such a medical device typically contains within a single outer sheath as many as five or six longitudinal pathways, or lumens, each of which can be used for a different purpose. For example, one such lumen might be used to extract a fluid from the body, another might be used to inject a drug, and a third might be used to carry compressed air to inflate a balloon on a distal tip of the catheter. Fluid-tight connections must be established between these lumens and external syringes or other devices which, for example, provide fluids to or receive fluids from the catheter.
The external devices to which the lumens in a multiple-lumen catheter must be connected typically terminate in single-lumen catheters. Accordingly, these single-lumen catheters must be connected to selected ones of the lumens in the multiple-lumen catheter. Various arrangements have been proposed for establishing such connections, but none of these arrangements has been completely satisfactory.
It will be apparent from the foregoing that there is a need for a simple, economical compact means to establish fluid-tight connections between the various lumens of a multiple-lumen catheter and corresponding single-lumen branch catheters.